


Fuck Him

by wisenedthefuckup



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Gen, Local Depressed Man Considers Suicide Again, Lonely Man Gets Lonelier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 12:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11440851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisenedthefuckup/pseuds/wisenedthefuckup
Summary: After seeing Joel and Ellie out of his town, Bill returns to his home to mourn his losses.





	Fuck Him

     “... We’re square.”  
     “Then get th’ fuck outta my town.” Bill’s voice almost broke again, but he stiffly turned his back. He couldn’t deal with the sympathy on Joel’s face, the pain. He couldn’t let himself feel anything. He would  **not** let Joel to see the pain that he was in. He told himself that Joel hadn’t already seen how many times he’d nearly cried today. He told himself that Joel didn’t give a shit. It was better that way.  
    Expression carefully stony, Bill opened the door to what was once a post office. This was a safe way back into town; that’s why he’d had Ellie drop him off here. From the post office, it wouldn’t be much trouble to get back to the bar. From there, the path was clear to his church-- he and Joel had made sure of that earlier.  
     Behind him,  he could hear Joel as he walked back towards his truck and... the girl that had almost gotten them killed. The truck that had gotten Frank killed.  
    His spine went rigid. Nausea gripped him, grief.  
    Sparing no glance to the team behind him, he threw his bag into the dark building and followed it inside. The thud, the rattle, as it hit the ground was oddly comforting. The glass of the door rattled as he slammed it. Breathing heavily, he pressed his back to it. His emotionless mask twisted into a grimace of sorrow. There was no sound except for his labored breath and the idling of the engine outside, the crackle of tires on loose pavement, and then just his breath. The rumble of thunder in the distance, vibrating through his bones.  
    “... Was that how you fuckin’ felt, Frank?”   
    Once he was sure they were gone, he sank down to sit on his ass. His breathing hitched. The weight of the last few hours pressed down on him in a way that he could hardly bear. Frank was gone.  _Actually_  gone, dead. Not coming back. Not somewhere he could save be saved. The last fucking thing he had left, gone.  
     _I want you to know I hated your guts_.   
    “Well f-fuck you, t-too-”  
     Bill didn’t need the letter. The dispassionate words, written in Frank’s untidy hand, were burned into his memory.  _Your stupid town. Set-in-your-ways attitude. Wanted more. You were right. Better than spending one more day with you_.  
    A hand covered his mouth but a cry broke past it. Frank’s dead, sunken face was stuck in his mind. He couldn’t stop hearing the thump as his shriveled body hit the ground. He could see the way Frank’s body sprawled on the floor.  
     Tears filled his eyes and that was it.   
      Everything he’d been holding in came crashing out, loudly and messily. Not giving a damn if the infected heard him- the thunder, the rain, drowned him out anyway- Bill curled up over his knees, sobbing into his arms. Emotion tore through him, clenching his lungs, tightening his throat, turning his ribs as unmoving as steel. He couldn’t breathe. Weight pressed down on him, crushing him, digging into his shoulders, his chest, his stomach.  
    “Fu-fuck you, F-Frank!”  
    On some level, he’d known his boyfriendwas dead. Not just gone, dead. He’d imagined it four-hundred ways just last Sunday. Torn apart by infected. Killed by hunters. Dead of starvation. Caught in another trap, in another town. Gunned down by FEDRA. Slaughtered by bandits. Died of a wound he couldn’t treat. Crushed by debris. But seeing his body strung up like that… it was all too real. Frank was gone and he was never coming back, died because he wanted to  _get away from Bill_. Bill had been so intolerable that  _death_ was preferable. It was what Bill had always tried for, but... not with Frank. Never with Frank.   
    “Goddamn idiot!”   
    Sobbing openly, he wiped at his eyes even as grief tore through him. His shoulders shook, his ribs ached, his lungs heaved. He cried with his entire body, rocking. They hadn’t been perfect, but they’d been  _something._ And now they were  **nothing**. Bill was alone. Joel and Ellie were going… somewhere far, judging by the fact they risked his life for a car. They weren’t coming back; they’d be dead in a few days. And Frank was…  
     He could see Frank’s face, delighted and teasing, the first night they spent together. He could see Frank’s face, sad but excited, when Frank told him he was moving away for his last year of high school. He could see Frank’s face, disbelieving and relieved, when they found each other in Pennsylvania. He could see Frank’s face, tired but content, as they worked on barricades. He could see Frank’s face, furious and exhausted, after their last argument.  
    He could see Frank’s face, gray and shrunken, laying on the floor in that house.  
    His kukri dug awkwardly into his thigh from where he’d sat on his bag and he ripped it from it’s sheathe, hurling it across the room. The metal clanged across the floor and, tearfully, he looked up to follow it. Night had fallen, and the weapon was hidden in shadow.  
    Sniffling, wheezing, he turned on his flashlight. The blade on the floor glinted, and he tried not to think of the smile Frank had worn when he’d gifted it to him. The excitement and pride Frank had glowed with, asking Bill if he liked it. Explaining that was why he’d kept Bill out of the west warehouse for days.  
  
    Resolute, breath still quivering, body still aching, Bill got to his feet. He’d run so much today that his feet felt as though they were crumbling in his boots, but his heart hurt worse.  
     He wiped the tears and snot from his face as he grabbed his bag, shouldering it. He sniffled and set his jaw as he snatched the kukri off the ground and slammed it back into it’s spot in the bag. He only halfway listened for infected as he strode out the back door and turned towards the bar. Rain fell from the sky in drops as fat as Bill’s tears. Lightning streaked across the sky. Thunder shook the town.  
     The one stray clicker that tried to bother him had it’s head blown off, and he was gone before anything else noticed the sound.  
    Slamming the door of the bar shut behind himself- just barely remembering to relock it- he threw his shotgun down on the counter. Nearly crying all over again, he raked his fingers through his hair, pacing furiously. Everything was so much. Everything was too much. Grief, regret, anger, betrayal, burned through him, clawing at his insides.  
    “Y’ hated my guts, huh? My way of doin’ shit? Of keeping us fuckin’ safe?! I k-keptcha a-alive for y-years! Th-This is what I g-get?!”   
     He swung out a foot at one of the bar stools, cursing as his toe connected painfully with the metal leg and it went tumbling across the room. “Stole my battery, stole my shit, stole my hea-” He choked back the words, sobbing all over again, and cleared the counters with a scream. It felt like his heart was being shredded.  
    Turning towards the windows, moonlight streaming in between the cracks in the boards caught his eyes. His gaze were drawn to chess board sitting untouched for months- years? he didn’t know any more- on the table. Bearing his teeth, his expression twisted from anguish to anger. He’d been saving that game for Frank. Waiting for Frank to come back, to take his turn. Frank wasn’t coming back.  
      Bill leaped at the table and overturned the board in a violent motion. Chess pieces scattered across the table and off of it, clacking as they hit the wall or landed on the floor. The hollow sounds echoed the way his heart felt as it thudded against his ribs.  
    “Fuckin’ gotcherself killed, y’sonnuva bitch bastard! Just fuckin’ like you, too!”   
    Shotgun forgotten, he ran from the bar. Ran up the stairs, spilled through the windows on the upper floor. Thundered down the stairs, through the bakery. Struggled with the bakery door, slammed it, locked it. He could hardly see, but that was okay. They’d cleared this section of the town only hours earlier. The worst danger he would be in was tripping over one of the infected corpses, slipping in the gathering puddles.  
    He could barely see to open the locks in his way, and only remembered to lock them again through sheer force of habit. Some last stupid will to stay alive, to keep himself safe.  
    Winded and crying all over again, he thundered down the stairs into the cellar. The sound of the cellar doors slamming shut echoed around him. No light penetrated the darkness except for his flashlight and the lantern, which had burned low. He ignored it, blindly grabbing items from the pile nearby. Items that had been  _theirs_. His and Franks. Memories tied intrinsically to Frank that he just couldn’t get rid of. Comics and magazines Frank had shown him with a laugh. Cassettes they had found then listened to all night long for some variety from their voices, their breath, the ominous creak of settling buildings, the distant moans of infected.  
    Arms laden with poisoned memories, Bill marched up the stairs to the main floor. He stormed through the sanctuary, steps echoing across the with the thunder outside, to where the back window was still open to the world. Rain lashed the roof outside. If the sun hadn’t set yet, rolling storm clouds completely blotted it out. Lightning flashed through the sky, outlining the school’s scoreboard. Thunder shook the church’s foundation.  
    “Together til the fuckin’ end, huh?!” Comics and magazines went flapping into the air. Cassettes clattered across the roof and rained down into the mud below, but Bill was already jogging back downstairs for more.   
     The closet under the stairs was his next target. He tore the boards off with a crowbar he kept lying nearby, jerked the door open. Boxes of Frank’s shit- stuff Frank had collected, enjoyed- and shit from Frank- gifts- lay stacked inside. He tucked two under his arms, and a bottle of whiskey, and stomped back upstairs. He threw himself against the window sill, leaning partially out into the gale. He grabbed fistfuls of things and threw them blindly outside, with various ravings against his lover. A shot of alcohol burned down his throat for every fistful of garbage that went out the window.   
    “I would have done any…!”  
    He froze, choking on his tears, as his fist found a heavy book. His heart twisted into painful knots as he recognized the shape. He almost threw up, because he knew what was inside. The anger withered into a tiny, painful pit in his stomach. Exhaustion crashed down on him. His entire body ached.  
  
    Taking the book and his mostly-empty bottle, he stumbled to his room. He nearly falling the whole way, muttering to himself as he wiped tears from his face.   
     He didn’t so much fall into bed as he did  _collapse_ into bed, like an old tree finally bent low. He landed painfully on his pistol, and tore it’s holster off of his pants, while nearly spilling his whiskey. The gun landed, heavy, nearby. Moonlight glinted off the surface, but he ignored it, blurry vision focused on Frank’s old book.  
   Opening it with surprising care, after the violence he had displayed to Frank’s other possessions, he flipped to the spot marked by a faded Polaroid. He steeled himself, gasping and heaving, before carefully removing it and flipping it over.  
     Frank and himself beamed up at him from the old photograph. Arms looped over each other’s shoulders, Lincoln’s town sign peeked over their shoulders in the background. The first time they’d reached Lincoln together, after the outbreak. A simple heart was sharpied in on the white border, a B and an F on either side. Out of tears, he could only sniff and huff as he stared at the photo, grief narrowing his vision to a single square.  
    “T-til the end, huh?”  
    His hand exchanged the whiskey bottle for his pistol.

**Author's Note:**

> Bill is my very favorite character, possibly ever. We get just enough of him in canon that it hints at a whole wealth of information, and I'm desperate for more- so desperate that I am going to personally fill his tag with stuff.
> 
> I plan on following Bill throughout his life, from before the outbreak until a little bit after this, to record both what has happened to him, and to write in-game events through his eyes, past that shield of snarkiness that he uses to protect himself.


End file.
